We managed to get some hands on time with the devices. The Xperia P's WhiteMagic display is apparently rated at 900 nits, making it significantly brighter than any competing smartphone we've tested. You can get a bit of an idea of the brightness of the P's display in the gallery below.

The Xperia U's LED lit transparent strip was also a neat effect that we've got some shots of. As a recap, the transparent strip on the Xperia U changes colors according to the color of the theme you select for the phone, or the color of a photo you may be viewing. There's currently no developer API access to control the color of the strip, nor do you have the ability to assign a particular color to specific contacts but here's hoping that Sony will take this feature a bit further in the future.